The Gift to Tell It Like It Is

This week, John Falcone reflects on calling, truth, action, and on the gift of telling it like it is, inviting us to pray for the grace of speaking from the heart.

March 15, 2026: Fourth Sunday of Lent, Year A
1 Samuel 16:1b, 6–7, 10–13a
Psalm 23: 1–6
Ephesians 5:8–14
John 9:1–41

The Gift to Tell It Like It Is

A reflection by John Falcone

This week’s readings speak of light and insight, of personal callings and political action, of exposing wrongdoing and of telling it like it is.

In our first reading (1 Sam 16), God sends Samuel to the farmstead of Jesse, to anoint a new king for Israel after King Saul has come up short as a leader. Samuel is drawn – understandably – to Jesse’s son Eliab, a young man of strength and photogenicity. But God says, “Not him. God does not see as people see: people look at appearances, but I look at the heart.”

Instead, God selects David, whose name means “Beloved.” Almost everyone will come to love David: even Saul’s own son Jonathan, with whom David will have a passionate love story; even Uriah, the high ranking officer whom David will murder so that he can steal the man’s wife; even God, who will accept David’s repentance from this horrible crime.

What is it that makes David so lovable? Many books have been written on that question! He is a shrewd and often ruthless politician, as we can read in the stories of 1^st and 2^nd Samuel. Perhaps it’s that at key moments in his life story, David speaks and acts from the heart. The Psalms that are attributed to David are always a mixture of bitter lament, passion, anger, and hope. They express the mixed feelings that we may all have had at one time or another, toward God, life, and each other; and they do it without holding back. When God announces the punishment that David and Bathsheba must face for betraying Uriah – their lovechild will die – David wears his grief and repentance on his sleeve. I encourage you to read this part of David’s story for yourself; it is told in 2^nd Samuel chapters 11–12. It is perhaps the most brutally honest and humane story in Scripture.

Perhaps this is what God found when God looked inside David. David knows how to speak and act with heartfelt honesty. He knows when and how to keep it real.  

This week’s Gospel reading (Jn 9) is also about speaking out with heartfelt honesty and integrity. Jesus gives sight to a beggar born blind, but some of the community’s self-proclaimed leaders are suspicious. Is this fake news? How can this Jesus be a godly person if he does not follow the established norms and protocols of religion?

The beggar answers plainly and honestly: “I don’t know whether or not Jesus is a sinner. All I know is that I used to be blind, and now I can see.” Step by step, the conversation spirals out of control. “Why should we trust this beggar’s testimony?” the leaders wonder aloud and in public. In the end, things turn nasty and personal: “ ‘You are steeped in sin from the moment you were born! Who are you to be giving us lectures?’ And with that, they threw out the beggar.”

Both the story of David and the story from this week’s gospel reading speak of a virtue that the ancients called parrhesia (pronounced par-ray-SEE-ah). Parrhesia is the Greek word for “saying everything.” It was considered a virtue both in ancient philosophy and in early Christian practice. The ancient Athenians recognized parrhesia as the engine that kept democracy going. Philosophers recognized parrhesia as the virtue that allowed ordinary people to speak truth to power. The earliest Christians recognized parrhesia as a gift of the Holy Spirit, a boldness that comes from the Lord. Modern translations of scripture call it “confidence, fearlessness, openness, courage” and the ability to speak the truth “plainly.” As Jesus promised: “I will give you words and a wisdom that none of your opponents will be able to withstand” (Lk 21:15).

When Christianity became the official religion of the Roman dictatorship, parrhesia conveniently disappeared from the official lists of Christian virtues. But it remains a gift of God’s Spirit: a practice that can help us heal our relationships and a virtue that might even help us preserve our democratic institutions.

This week I invite you – as I invite myself – to pray for the grace of parrhesia: the grace of speaking honestly, the grace to speak from the heart, the grace to keep it real and to tell it like it is. Let us pray for the grace to have honest conversations: both with those who agree with us (we need to find each other and build our connections!) and with those whose politics and perspectives we do not share.

Understand: I’m not talking about announcing which candidates I’m supporting and who I’m going to vote for in November (although there will certainly be a time and a place for political canvassing as an expression of my faith). I’m talking about sharing why it matters to me personally. What I hope for. Why I care. Who I love. Who I want to protect. At Marin Organizing Committee, the grass roots organizing group where I volunteer in the Bay Area, we ask people two basic questions to jumpstart our conversations: (1) “What keeps you up at night?” and (2) “What would get you out bed in the morning, if you truly believed that working on it could make a real change in the world?” These kinds of parrhesia conversations can knit us together. If we enter into them with patience and curiosity, they may even repair broken relationships, and help us to resist the challenging times that are to come.

Both David and the beggar born blind found their calling: one to help lead his community, the other to follow Jesus in courage, spirit, and truth.

Friends in Christ, we know something about parrhesia. Some of us have come out as LGBTQ+ believers. Some of us have outed ourselves as friends, family, and allies of the queer Christian community.

Let us seek out the grace of parrhesia for the rest of our lives. Let us seek out honest conversation. Let us ask the Spirit to give us words when our own courage fails. In this time of big lies and of manufactured confusion, let us speak frankly with each other about our loves, fears, and hopes.

John P. Falcone is a practical theologian religious educator and a practitioner of Theatre of the Oppressed (PhD Boston College). He has been a Dignity member for more than 20 years with close links to Dignity NY where he met his husband Matias Wibowo in 2005. He is currently the Ford Visiting Professor of Practical Theology at San Francisco Theological Seminary.